


In Her Eyes

by Gallicenae



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Lavellan Backstory, Mythal is of course involved, Solavellan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 14:26:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gallicenae/pseuds/Gallicenae
Summary: Faelan Lavellan doesn't remember where she learned the nursery rhyme she'd sing to herself as a child, but it seems more relevant now than it ever has before.---Events leading up to and during the Inquisition, exploring Faelan Lavellan's relationships with her companions, the Dread Wolf, and ancient Elvhen ruins. Work in progress - tags, characters, and rating will continue to be updated.





	In Her Eyes

A tall glade of trees sheltered the clan’s camp, their wooden aravels arranged in a crescent around the central hearth. The earth was packed in places, common paths to and from homes and workshops. There was a joyful calm in finally having their feet on the ground again, claiming stewardship over this new home for as long as it allowed them.

“Airell, fetch your sister. Your mother wants her help with the berries.”

“Make Braehach do it.” Airell sat between the roots of one of the larger trees, intent on napping in the warm breeze of the afternoon. 

Kynan crossed his arms and looked down at his second child. “Your brother is busy. I am busy. Everyone else is taking care of camp and doing what they are expected to. Time for you to do the same.” He kicked gently at Airell’s foot. “Now go and fetch her.”

Airell grumbled before bringing his feet up underneath him and standing. “But I don’t even know where she is!”

“Best not let your mother know that.” His father gave him a pat on the shoulder and turned to go back to his work.

Airell began with the usual places: the thickets closest to the clearing, the branches of the older trees, the pockets of wildflowers growing in patches of sunlight. When he came across the border scouts, he would stop and talk with them, offering to relay any news back to camp once he returned. They said they would keep an eye out for Faelan if she came this way.

The clan liked to joke about how often Faelan wandered off. She was too young to go very far, but that never stopped her from trying. Airell picked his way down a deer path, muttering to himself about how it was somehow his job to make sure she never left the borders of their camp. Their mother would do better to keep her in with the halla.

As he was bemoaning his luck and the loss of his afternoon nap, he heard a soft melody off to his left. A wall of berry bushes barred him from pushing forward in that direction, but there was a small hole toward the bottom he thought he could manage to crawl through.

Faelan stood in a small clearing, surrounded by the juiciest blackberries Airell had seen since the clan arrived. She held her shift up to collect the ones she’d picked and was singing something Airell had never heard before.

_Aravel, aravel, on the ground_  
_spin and spin and spin around_  
_The Keepers are lost_  
_and the magic unbound_  
_aravel, aravel, on the ground_

_Arrow, arrow, in the air_  
_fly into the darkened lair_  
_The People are lost_  
_but the child is there_  
_arrow, arrow, in the air_

_Dagger, dagger, in your sheath_  
_come on out to slay the beast_  
_The Gods are lost_  
_and we lay asleep_  
_dagger, dagger, in your sheath_

_Aravel, aravel, on the ground_  
_The World is lost_  
_but the past’s been found_  
_spin and spin and spin around_  
_aravel, aravel, on the ground_

Airell did not stir from his position, though he could feel the mud soaking through his tunic and the brambles scratching at his arms. Faelan was swaying back and forth to the rhythm of her song, repeating it over and over again. Her words closed round his heart and chilled it with fear, though he could not understand why. Whatever she was singing, Airell wanted it to stop.

“Da’fen.” 

The pet name was soft, barely a whisper, but Faelan had heard it. She turned toward Airell, and his breath caught in his throat. Her wide grin was stained purple, with smears running down the sides of her mouth. It would have been so like her had it not been for that song and the makeshift vallaslin streaked across her face. 

“Airell! Come see what I found!” She held her shift out and bent forward so he could catch a glimpse of her collection from where he lay. He made no move to enter the circle of brambles.

“Let’s go. Mamae needs your help.” The demand was stiff, and spoken mostly to the ground as Airell attempted to crawl back out the way he’d come.

“Okay!” Faelan took to her hands and knees, keeping one hand close so the blackberries wouldn’t fall from her clothes. 

Airell was wiping his tunic clean when his little sister appeared next to him on the game trail, twigs and leaves twisted in her hair. He picked them out as best he could, Faelan occupying the time by stuffing a few more berries into her mouth.

“You know where the stream is da’fen?”

Faelan pointed ahead of them and started walking, unperturbed by how narrow the path was with the brush scraping against her legs. 

“What were you doing in there, Faelan?”

“Picking berries.”

“I can see that. But,” Airell stumbled over a loose rock, “but what else?”

He watched her little shoulders shrug in response.

The path opened up to the stream that supplied the camp with fresh water. They were farther than Airell had ventured on his own before, but still well within the clan’s borders. He took Faelan by the hand once they reached the water and guided her to sit on a large boulder. 

Airell pulled his shirt over his head and submerged it in the cool water a few feet away. He was stalling. Their parents wouldn’t mind a pair of dirty clothes, but the dried markings on Faelan’s face... it wasn’t from their pantheon. Airell knew them all by heart, had been eagerly learning since Brae earned his last year. Maybe they would think it was just child’s play? He looked up at his little sister. She was swinging her feet in the water as if she hadn’t a care in the world. 

No, the marks looked too detailed for that, even from a child’s hand. They looked... for lack of a better word, dangerous. Airell bit his lip. 

“Fae. Who put the marks on your face?” He motioned to his own to get her attention.

“It’s my _vallaslin._ Like Brae’s.” Faelan put her little nose up in the air and slowly turned her head from side to side so that her older brother might admire the markings better.

“It’s not like Brae’s. It’s not like mother’s or father’s either.” Airell brought up his tunic, wringing out the water before shaking it. “It’s not like the Keeper’s or anyone else’s.”

“That’s because it’s _mine.”_

He pointed his shirt at her accusingly.  _“_ That’s because you made it up.”

“No I didn’t! This is what it’s _supposed_  to look like!”

“How _what_  is supposed to look like? Whose vallaslin do you think you wear?”

Faelan gathered a breath. “Fe-,” but then she stopped, her eyes growing wide and her mouth snapping shut at the near admission. 

Airell frowned and wadded up his shirt. He stalked back over to the boulder, took his sister’s face in one hand and rubbed at her forehead and cheeks with the outside of his damp tunic. She squirmed away as much as she was able. Her hands pulled at his wrists, leaving the berries to tumble from her lap. 

Faelan’s cries of protest were ignored, muffled slightly by the fabric. When Airell finally pulled away and splashed more water on his sister’s face, she was raw and pink. He knew it’d make her cry, but he swore to himself that he was doing her a favor. Doing them all a favor.

“Don’t ever let anyone catch you with that on your face again.” Airell mimicked their father’s stern tone as best he could, “Do you hear me?”

Faelan glared at him, sticking her lip out in such a hurt and severe pout that Airell didn’t think she’d ever forgive him. 

“Why are you so mean?”

“Faelan! How many times have you been told that he is a wicked god? That he will steal children away if they wander too far? That he will betray any and everyone.”

“Wolves don’t do that!” She cried defiantly.

“He’s not a-” Airell sighed and shook his head. How was he supposed to explain it? “He’s bad, evil. And it is bad and evil to think him good.”

“That’s not what the old mother said.”

“Who?”

Faelan threw her weight forward, jumping into the water and sinking in up to her knees. “The old mother. She’s the one who showed me where all the good berries are.” She did her best to wade downstream, making her way to the shallows until the water only covered her feet. 

“And _she_ said not to believe everything other people tell me.” Faelan turned to fix another glare at her older brother. “So she’s much smarter than you.”

His sister continued on toward camp, and Airell let her keep a ways ahead of him to leave her to her own thoughts. He pulled on his tunic and thumbed over a few of the darker smudges that remained from washing Faelan’s face. There had been so many eyes... and this older mother? No one much larger than him could have gone inside that bramble cave. And none of the clan would dare to entertain the idea that the Dread Wolf was anything other than what his name implied.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) This rhyme is meant to sound similar to the jump-rope tunes children would sing to keep rhythm when jumping. Feel free to share your interpretations of what any of it could mean!
> 
> 2) Braehach is 17, Airell is 11, and Faelan is 6


End file.
